creating music for poetic dance

Become aware that the pulse of life is like a dance, life is flowing, you’re moving along weightless, like the branches of the trees, like the flowers, like the grass, like the ears of a cornfield moving in waves, in interaction together. – Swami Sivananda Radha

Swami Radha’s poem, In My Heart is a Song, is the inspiration for a beautiful dance created at the Spokane Radha Center. Her poetry, love, light, music and commitment to inner growth blend with her early history as a professional dancer, and come into harmonious interplay in a choreography that touches all of us who dance her words. (more…)

poetry from swami radha

Excerpts from when you first called me radhacontinues with a reflection on how Swami Radha’spoetry has inspired the Spokane Radha Centre to dance! “Swami Radha’s poetic voice is infused with the intelligence of a life lived with passion. This realism is what makes them accessible, practical and also inspiring.” (Clea McDougall) Satya writes how the dancers in Spokane are accessing the poem, “In My Heart is a Song”, bringing it to a life that resonates in their own hearts.

“Learn some Indian dance and learn to spiritualize the body. Learn to create and bring back that spiritual point in the consciousness of the cells of the body. Make the body a spiritual tool.”

Swami Radha recognized this love for the dance in Swami Radhakrishnananda and used the dance as a way for her to connect more deeply with the Divine. In 1983 Swami Radhakrishnananda would offer the Radha Krishna dance for audiences across Canada giving her the opportunity to reflect deeply on this sacred dance. More recently she has been archiving the sacred dances at the Ashram and shares her personal experience with dance as a spiritual practice.

This summer, Yasodhara Ashram added a new workshop to it’s summer offerings. Developed by Swami Yasodananda, a long time devotee of Swami Radha’s and a student of classical East Indian dance, participants explored and reflected on the sacred dance of the Kundalini Mantras. I met with Yasodananda on the deck of Mandala House at the Ashram one beautiful August morning to learn more about her process of developing this sacred dance and the workshop itself. (Note the slide show at the end of this article)

Tara Naraynsingh visited with us at the Ashram this summer for the Kundalini Chakra dance workshop. She speaks of her experience with the dance and how it reflects her life and work, offering the yogic teachings in Trinidad. Swami Yasodananda, a long time devotee of Swami Radha‘s choreographed the dance to the 6 Chakra mantras of the Kundalini System and offered the workshop.